Back in August Google first started piloting “Author information in search results” (Matt Cutts YouTube Videos 1 & 2) giving authors more prominence in SERPs

Here’s the how-to link – the original post by Google: Google Commandment #1,785,234,002

One of the final steps requires you to add the pubs you write for via the “Contributor to” link. The “Contributor to” link is not so easy to find so I embedded a screen grab of it here. Click the image for a larger version.

This should not take more than 15 minutes start to finish to set up.

It looks like Google is now also giving more favorable rankings to the Google+ profile accounts over other profile platforms in SERPs. More on that, a Techworld article expounding on a Danny Sullivan article.

To summarize all that – You need to get your profile up on Google+ ASAP!

After it’s set up with you’ve got your pic, pub links up, and your articles have your email address in them, (how that happens – see dev team) and Google waves their magic wand, your picture will pop up along side the search result, along with links to other articles you published, your Google+ profile, and social/sharing platforms, among other things.

Not only will you will be the coolest (and one of the most prominent) results in Google, but all your competing editors and authors will be very jealous. Do it for the bragging rights of increased traffic AND enhanced celebrity exposure.

You are going to have to get your email in your profile and that email address must appear in the post.  More spam – maybe. More web traffic – for sure.

There are other ways to comply but this might be the easiest for most companies. Either way you will need to involve your dev team.

And – You’ll need to get the dev teams on this soon so you are not the last one to the party.

How to Pitch Upper Management:
Push this deliverable hard with upper management as a high-value low-impact way to increase page views for existing and future website content. “Page views = sales boss!”

Get a meeting with the dev team, have them watch the Matt Cutts videos and read the full post on Google before.

How to Pitch the Dev Team:
You can tell the dev guys to think of Google as job security, if they don’t already realize this. “And our CMS should do this automatically so we are not bugging you every day to update our posts,” you’ll say to reinforce the benefit to prioritizing this project. Set a near-term deadline and make it happen.

Yes it’s just another thing that Google is making you do, but it is a must do – soon.

In June 2009 Microsoft rolled out Bing, the newest, freshly branded version of their search services.  I’ve used it a few times and found it a capable tool with a nice presentation but saw no reason to switch from Google.  Just saw an interesting article from CNNMoney provides some interesting statistics about where Bing stands at two years old.

One fun fact is that while Bing’s market share has risen from 8.4% at the time of its launch to 14.7% currently, almost none of that increase has come at the expense of market-leader Google (now with 64.8%).  It’s mainly been siphoned away from third-place Yahoo which (in case you didn’t know) has actually been powered by Bing since late 2009.  As the article puts it:

“There’s usually no such thing as ‘bad’ market share growth, but… That means more than half of Microsoft’s share growth has come from cannibalizing its search partner.”

The most attention-grabbing numbers though are Microsoft’s losses on Bing: $5.5 billion since launch.  The entire online services division at Microsoft, since 2007, has lost $9 billion.

Microsoft (and some analysts) believe that Bing will start turning a profit in a few years and, more importantly, evolve into a truly unique product through the addition of natural language searches and other features.  But when you’re losing a billion dollars a quarter that’s definitely the sort of bet that only a giant like Microsoft can take.

The day I hear someone say, in absolute seriousness, “I binged the address of the hotel,” I’ll admit that they’ve made real progress.

If you have a website, there is a very good chance that you track your activity via Google Analytics. As Astek is an agency, we track not only our web activities via Google Analytics, but also the activities on many of our clients’ sites and blogs. I was at a brainstorming session with a client and their PR agency, when the client asked how many hits their sites receive from mobile devices. Let me tell you, I was extremely relieved to have an analytic app downloaded and set up on my iPad to bring out and show our client!

I have downloaded the Analytics for iPad app (available both for free and paid premium). It’s fantastic for accessing your information and data on the go, and the Dashboard functionality works wonderfully if your Google Analytics account manages multiple sites. You also can add additional accounts besides your own – again, very useful if you are an agency.

The reviews are mixed, but I have had nothing but great experience with it. I’m still using the free version, but the HD version of the app receives mostly all positive reviews. One reason I may upgrade, is that you can send PDF and Excel reports to yourself, your team and clients directly from the app. Not too shabby!

We also use the Sprout Social social analytic tool, which does incorporate Google Analytics per client. However it is nice to have the specific Analytics app that covers all clients. Do you have an analytic app that you prefer? Share in the comments!

Standard Google Analytics gives you a lot of basic data about how people are interacting with your web-site: visits, pageviews, bounce rates, it can even measure the time it takes to load your pages if you enable that option.

But what makes GA really flexible is a little feature called Event Tracking which allows you to report almost ANY type of information that’s  from your site back to Google and they will record it for you, and allow you to graph it alongside the other data you’re collecting.

Some possible metrics you could track using Event Tracking:

- How often do people click links that take them out of your site and which links are they
- Which PDFs are being downloaded the most
- How many people click the play button on your videos
- How many people start filling out a contact form and never finish/send it
- What percentage of your articles do people scroll through

The only thing you need is a bit of JavaScripting to catch the events when they happen, process them (if needed) and pass them along to GA.

Let your imagination run wild: what sorts of information would you like to collect from your website?

I think there is a common misconception that “going green” seems like a lot of effort for such a small contribution.  Many people say to themselves  “I don’t drink that many sodas, I don’t have enough to recycle to be worth the effort.”  But I say to you, Scrooges, that if no one makes the effort, then who will?  It is our responsibility to be shining examples to our families, our neighbors, and our fellow vertebrates (and invertebrates too- I don’t discriminate against exo-skeletons).

So what are we doing at Astek to contribute?

RECYCLING:  One of the first things I did when I started here at Astek was to put together a recycling bin.  Chicago is notorious for being a bad recycling city so it didn’t surprise me that Logan Square does not have recycling pick-up, so I knew I had to make it happen myself.   I picked up a little plastic bin and made a recycling sign for it so nobody mistakes it for a garbage bin.  It also helps to keep the paper/cardboard recycling separate so you don’t end up with a pulpy mess if someone throws in a half-full can or something.  There are recycling drop off centers all around the city and when the bin is full I take the bin with me and empty on the way home from work

My Office-made Recycling Bin

ELECTRONICS RECYCLING:  Did you know that throwing away old electronics in your regular garbage can/dumpster is really bad for the environment?  The metal and computer parts in electronic devices not only takes a really long time to decompose, but often electronics have some kind of liquid that is highly toxic to the environment, so when you  throw it out you are poisoning the environment.  The good news?  There are lots of electronic recycling plants all around the city.  I found this great place called Recycle Tech Solutions which takes your old electronics and breaks them down safely to remove those dangerous liquids, separate the parts into basic elements and recycle or reuse every little bit they can.  They recycle everything from computers and print cartridges, to old refrigerators;  They say if it has a power cord of any kind they can recycle it!  So I gathered up the old, unused and broken equipment Astek had in storage, the used print cartridges, and even collected old electronics from the staff which they had laying around at home and drove it all over to these guys.  They were very friendly, and even unloaded the car for me!

COMPOSTING:  I have to give Andrew Crowe credit for this one- he has a compost bin at home and when we started talking about being more environmentally friendly he brought in a little plastic bin with a lid that we can put compost material in.  We put everything from banana peels to coffee grounds & filters in it and when it’s full he brings it home and adds it to his home compost.

BIKING:  A number of us in the office are getting psyched about the weather warming up soon so that we can ride our bikes to work!  Leaving the car at home is a great way to reduce you carbon footprint.  Did you know that there is a feature on googlemaps that now allows you to plan a biking route?  Google knows which streets have specific bike lanes and will map you a route to keep you safe.  A friendly reminder from all of us at Astek that you should ALWAYS wear your helmet and bring multiple bike lights with you if you might be riding at night.

No effort can be too small when it comes to cleaning up our environment.  If we all did these little things and inspired those we know to do that same it would make a HUGE DIFFERENCE!

This post was featured in ePiphany, Astek’s Monthly Newsletter |  Other ePiphany Articles

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Another Google search gadget! Yes it is Google  Instant Previews.

“Click once on the magnifying glass in the search results to instantly see a preview of the web page.” Google says.

They even call out text on the page. This could very well be the death knell for doorway pages.   Pages just built for search engines using duplicate content or content strictly built to support a keyword strategy used to lure in unsuspecting surfers. Does anybody like these pages? Don’t you feel duped when you get there?

Finally you can see before you click through – no more,  “damn, not another page full of garbage looking for my email address, or worse is trying to load a virus on my machine”.

Yes other search engines came out with this first but Google’s is better.  I especially like the size of the preview and the text call out based on the text you entered in your search.

Website design “should” change to make your previews stand out…

BTW – getting a droid 2 tonight looking forward to loading it up with all the apps.

I put together an excel spreadsheet with formulas that will help you calculate your Cost Per Lead, Cost Per Acquisition and more for a pay per click program.

Click the Excel Button to Download the File

(scanned for viruses and it is virus free)

Do your keyword research and plug in your estimated page-one cost per click for any keyword and see where you will end up with some very conservative conversion metrics.

Lots of assumptions but you can enter all your own data.

The formulas are based on a PPC campaign generating leads for a monthly repeating revenue model. The example is an apartment lease. All the cells will do the calculating for you just start entering the data you know.

Hope you find it useful and feel free to shoot me comments for improvement or what else you would like it to do. And if you are an excel or otherwise ninja feel free to edit and improve and post back for sharing.

Yep your adwords account interface does some of this, and there are lots of higher end software applications out there that will do the rest of this (and lots more) but not everybody can afford the high-end stuff.

If you get stuck feel free to give me a call. 773-486-6666

You must have noticed your Google searches bouncing around as you type. If you don’t know what’s been going on – it’s Google’s new way of presenting search results called Google Instant. Here’s a link to what’s it all about: http://www.google.com/instant/

Here’s what you need to know from an SEO perspective.  Rankings – It really changes nothing.  So in other words – “instant” vs. the old “hit enter” search provides the same results.

I have been able to produce anomalies from time to time where one is different than the other but the vast majority of searches I did in parallel came out exactly the same on multiple tries, (logged in or out of my Google accounts.)

Because results are being presented as you type – hence more results per user and each search, Google is saying you may see more impressions and potentially more clicks. Though we have not seen any significant differences with our clients’ analytics, in theory it makes sense.

Should I start optimizing for letters and partial words to get more people to my site earlier in the search processes? NO – please no.

Continue the best practices. Optimize for what the content is on the page.

And you have to use the words people search for in your pages. Make sure those words are what your page is about, and include the keywords in the html title and meta description too. (lots more to talk about than room for here)

Your html title and your meta description are typically what people see in search results. For Google – keep your html title under 65 characters – keep your meta description under 150 characters. Use a call to action in the title and/or the meta description. More than this  exceeds the majority of character display limits on Google.

You have to use the words people search for in your pages. (We can show you the best tools for this.) Make sure those words are what your page is about.

SEO is not a dark art but is a complex blend of understanding:

• human behavior
• how marketing messages need to be different on the web
• having a search engine friendly web site
• using the words people actually search for not only in your site,
• but in external links to your site as well

None of it happens in an instant, and there are no guarantees.

What works – Build authority for you site with a regular publishing schedule on your core topics. This needs to be supported with a selection of those topics based on what people are searching for – well if you want natural search traffic.

Sometimes breaking news or research evades exact matches with backward looking keyword research databases. At least organize, categorize or tag those articles in your website under a worthy category and directory.

No search for what you just wrote but have to publish?

Use similar events or past occurrences to choose the words that modify or describe the phrase. This tactic has been an effective strategy  in the past. Happy to demonstrate a few examples off line upon request.

So what does Google Instant mean to us all? A better user experience? You tell me. Maybe a faster hit on what you are looking for. Maybe we are now forced down a path already chose for us based on search and site traffic frequencies. Maybe it was where we were going already? There has been no significant change in traffic to our client sites that we can see. There is no change required  (today) in our opinion on how you should proceed with your SEO efforts.

Call or email us and we’d be happy to see if we can help get more traffic to your website, instant or otherwise.

Using your Android enabled camera phone you can now take a picture of a book cover, a landmark or even a local business and find out more about it using Google Goggles.

At the MCA and not sure if that is abstract expression or cubism. SNAP! Let the goggles tell ya.

Hungry on the brown line commute back home. Not sure if that sushi restaurant at Montrose is worth a visit. SNAP! Let the Goggles show you the lasted reviews.

Got a new business card, hate typing all that stuff into your CRM. SNAP! The Goggles make it easy to add new contacts.

It is admittedly limited on what it can do, but don’t worry before you know it, you will be able to snap a picture of a rock and have the goggles tell you – GRANITE!

Search by taking a picture! What next….

What do you need?

• An Android device running Android 1.6 or above
• A QVGA screen
• A camera with autofocus

Can your mobile device use the Goggles? Here’s the current list from Wikipedia.

Watch the video to learn more, put your goggles on, and become more so omniscient.

Last week Google added another transportation option to their maps directions service. Previously you could choose car, public transit, or walking. Now you can get recommendations for biking directions. They have incorporated information about trails, bike lines, and other preferred routes. These are denoted in dark green, light green, and dashed green, respectively. So from one point to another it will attempt to recommend the safest and most efficient route. Pretty cool.

I searched for the route from our office to Daley Plaza, which I take when I do Critical Mass, as I likely will Friday after next. See the full route in Google maps here.

Not bad, that’s pretty much the route I already take. Check out a much more detailed article from Google’s blog here.